


Not Alone

by Dazzledfirestar



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/F sexual situations, Skrulls skrulls everywhere!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:59:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dazzledfirestar/pseuds/Dazzledfirestar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Skrull planet was hell. She was hunted constantly, caught and escaping all over again. But at least she wasn't alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, before Avengers ruled the world, there were a ton of rumors and jokes and hints that Agent Coulson might be a Skrull. While I didn't think that was going to happen in the movies (and it didn't), it got me thinking about another favorite character of mine and how she had a ton and a half of dealings with the Skrulls too. And wouldn't all those little green bastards be in for a shock if Mockingbird and Agent Coulson were roaming free across their planet?
> 
> Anyway, I took aspects of the story from New Avengers: the Reunion (Bobbi's time on the skrull planet) and Secret Invasion (the return of those taken by the skrulls) and this is what came out. Please note: this was written well before Phil Coulson joined the 616 universe so his part of the story is NOT canon compliant on any level.

She remembers when they brought him into the… prison didn’t seem the right word for it. The holding tank worked. But she remembered seeing him as they dragged her back to her tube after yet another run in with not-Hawkeye. She remembered his eyes, angry, not defeated like so many others she’d seen. She remembered thinking that if they could find a way out he looked like the kind of person she’d want on her side. 

He was SHIELD. He had to be. It was the only reason he looked familiar. That and most of the suits she saw come through looked beaten, but he looked like he’d put up a hell of a fight. She lifted her head as they passed each other, eyes meeting. He nodded almost imperceptibly. He knew who she was, no doubt. The Skrulls hadn’t given her anything else to wear so her uniform stayed put. And how many former SHIELD agent/Avengers ran around in bell sleeves? He knew and she knew she had an ally.

It was the eyes that did it though. Her memory jumped to life just before they gassed her back into whatever state they kept their prisoners in. A case when she first started with SHIELD. Agent Philip Coulson.

Her ally had a name.

~*~*~*~

Escaping was the easy part. Staying out of their hands again was not nearly as easy as it should have been. At first she was distracted by the differences of the planet, the alienness of it all. But the holding tank was far away from any civilization and any hole in the rock would do for shelter during the day. Even if every camp she made, she woke up with an arrow and a note attached to it… he was hunting her, toying with her. She knew that and it kept her moving.

Then, there was her ally. In some cave in the middle of nowhere. She hadn’t even seen the flicker of light from outside. She’d been practically on top of the fire before she saw it and she froze. She didn’t know enough about him back home to really test whether he was who he said he was. Somehow she didn’t have to. A few cursory questions did it. The one that worked best was when he asked her how they’d first met.

She smiled for the first time in... Well, she wasn’t entirely sure how long. She remembered it vividly. The HYDRA leaks that all came back to one agent. At first she figured the guy’s partner was the problem but after meeting the partner in question—this man sitting across from her—she started looking in other directions. It had turned out that the target had slept with the wrong agent’s wife. She remembered clearly thinking that framing someone as a HYDRA informant was a bit of an extreme reaction. “We met because your ex partner was dumb enough to help someone cheat on their husband and get set up as an informant.”

“And you were so damn good at your job, you figured that out. Even after I spilt coffee on you.” He gave her a bit of a smile. Not a full one, but who would smile when stuck on an alien planet? The coffee memory did it. That answer was enough. He wasn’t a Skrull. Some sense told her so and she trusted it.

The next morning, she didn’t find an arrow.

~*~*~*~

She got very good at field dressings during those months. Granted, she had been pretty damn good at them anyway back on Earth but practice makes perfect and she had plenty of practice under her belt. Shredded fabric became like gold to them because any time they had to find some supplies, there would be a fight. But the Skrulls didn’t find their cave and usually only managed flesh wounds at best. “There.” She sighed, patting his arm as he flexed it against the wrapping. “Almost good at new.”

Her hand slid down along his skin and she pretended not to notice the goosebumps that formed in its wake. At least not until he took her hand in his and faced her. Her eyes went a little wide, she was sure. “Phil…”

“I know.” The words held everything that needed to be said. That this was not how people were supposed to get together. That this could just be the comfort of another human being. That they’d both gotten to the point where it was either touch each other, hold each other or crawl out of their own skin. 

But there was more to it than that and she wasn’t quite ready to deal with that. Not with everything going on. Not when she needed her guard up about everything else. She stared into his eyes—God they were so blue… how had she never noticed that?—and leaned closer. “We shouldn’t…”

“I know.” He said again before he pulled her closer and kissed her. Months of tension, of attraction burst between them and she wondered if they’d met somewhere else, if things hadn’t gone to hell and they weren’t stuck on some alien world, would it have come to this? She wanted to think it would have but she’d never really know.

~*~*~*~

There were things that couldn’t happen. That she wouldn’t let happen because of the risk. Because God forbid they slipped up and… she didn’t want to think about how an accident could slow them down or what the Skrulls would do with a pregnant human woman.

So she didn’t think about how much she wanted him. How much she wanted to do the one thing they really shouldn’t do because of the risks. So they touched, they tasted, they held each other and found every comfort but that one in each other. Maybe it was because they absolutely could not risk it that she wanted him inside her so badly. She wasn’t sure, and she was really past caring.

“Please…” the word came out as a soft whimper as her hips moved against his fingers. “Phil… please.”

She heard him swallow hard, his fingers stopped and he sighed. “No.”

“Phil.”

“No, Bobbi.” He leaned in and kissed her. “You have no idea how much I want to—“

She reached out, her hand moving up his thigh. “I bet I do.”

“But we can’t risk it.”

“Once. Please.”

“Once could be enough for all we know.” His fingers moved inside her and she moaned. “I’m not going to risk it.” His lips pressed to hers. “Or you.”

She sighed. The sound was half passion, half frustration. But she said what they always said when the subject came up. The only thing that she clung to when it came to maybe getting off planet and finding a way back to Earth. Or at least somewhere where they wouldn’t be hunted. “Someday…”

“Someday.” He echoed it back to her for the millionth time as he claimed her lips and his fingers slid deeper.

~*~*~*~*~

It shouldn’t have happened. They shouldn’t have been found. Two years and they hadn’t been caught and then… nothing. Everything went black before she hit more than two of them. She heard him say her name as she went down though and thought maybe she managed to say his too.

A voice that stopped being familiar years earlier woke her. “You’re mine.”

She laughed. As if some Skrull wearing her ex-husband’s face was going to get to her. “Even if you were the real Hawkeye,” she let a slow, cold grin cross her face, “I stopped being yours a long time ago.”

He goaded her for ages. She let her mind wander, wonder what it would have been like to make it home. See California again. See the people who were her friends… But one thought stuck with her. Find Phil, get home and have a life. Then she could let him make love to her the way they both wanted. She could go back to SHIELD with him and forget about all the superhero bullshit. Even with Clint’s voice echoing in her ears that was all she could think about.

They knocked her out again after she’d choked the life out of that bastard.

~*~*~*~*~

_Where are we?_

It was the question nobody seemed to have an answer too in the obviously crashed and malfunctioning ship. There were all sorts of people coming out of the pods. Agents, superheroes… civilians that had enough contact with those higher up on the ladder to be useful. Bobbi scanned for one face and nearly tripped over the debris to get to him when she saw him.

He wrapped his arms around her. “How long?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think we’re where we were anymore…” Bobbi pulled back and stared at him. “The first time you kissed me…”

“You’d just put a field dressing on my left arm. You said we shouldn’t. I said I know and I kissed you anyway because I couldn’t not kiss you.” He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt and showed her the scar. “The first time we had sex…”

“We never have. No matter now much I begged. You said you wouldn’t risk it, or me.” Her cheeks flushed even as she threw herself into his arms. “God, I missed you.”

He chuckled into her hair. “You were unconscious.”

“Doesn’t matter.” She laughed softly. “Never again.” She barely breathed the words against his chest. “I’m never letting go again.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He kissed the top of her head and sighed. “I’m not either.”

The hiss of a hatch opening shot her heart rate up. There was no way to know what was on the outside; was there air? Were they on another planet?

She saw smoke first, then blue sky and the tops of trees… trees that looked painfully familiar. “Oh my God…” the statement came from one of the many other people milling around the space. But the reverence in the voice… she couldn’t feel that yet. They’d manufactured her home years ago; made it look like it was supposed to. Who was to say they hadn’t done it again.

The faces though, throughout the crowd around the ship… if the Skrulls had recreated them, they’d done a pretty horrible job. She saw Hank step out first. How had she not noticed him there? Several others followed. She held Phil’s hand for a moment before stepping out, blinking into the sun for a moment. He must have seen Clint first because he held back when her ex stepped forward.

“Is it really you?”

“Yes.” Before she could say anything else, he grabbed her and kissed her. Proof enough that it had to be Clint but still… she pushed him back. “Stop.”

“What?”

“I said stop. Yes, it’s me. No, I don’t want you to kiss me.” She looked up and he looked heartbroken. Part of her felt a little vindicated, the rest was having a hard time caring. When she’d left, it had been over. Done. Finished. There was nothing left there for her. Apparently, judging by the look on Clint’s face, her Skrull wannabe hadn’t agreed. “It’s been a long time, Hawks.” She said slowly before really taking him in. “And what the hell are you wearing?”

~*~*~*~*~

Meeting after meeting. Test after test. Every kind of way they could make sure she was who she said she was was used. Bobbi knew it wasn’t just her but by the end she was about ready to snap. These people—her, Phil, Hank and everyone else those little green fuckers had stolen years from—deserved some kind of comfort after all that. Not to be treated like lab rats. It was far too familiar and far too much like what had been done to them before.

She knew they’d brought everyone to what was left of the Baxter Building. She knew they were all filing out at relatively the same time. Some left over sense of panic gripped her when she didn’t see him in the crowd. What if she’d been wrong? What if he was the plant on that ship? What if… 

She nearly jumped when his arm slid around her waist. “So we’re all clear.”

“And we’re home…” she bit her lip, wondering exactly what was going to happen. Wondering if they could do this without the adrenaline, the fear, the constant guard… She wondered if they could be some kind of normal. Part of her doubted she’d known what qualified as normal even before the Skrulls had shown up. So maybe they’d have to find some other standard to measure it all by.

“Nearly.” He gave her a half smile. “Apparently SHIELD has a couple safe houses they want to send us to.”

“Oh.”

“Fury had a different idea.” He smiled again. The smile was a little tense and Bobbi wondered if Nick had gotten into some kind of twisted big brother mode on him. Or slipped him a box of condoms. Either was entirely within the scope of reality.

She chuckled deceptively lightly. “So did I.” She’d seen Nick briefly. He’d told her a few things that made her want to laugh and cry or both at the same time. Things had gone from bad to worse apparently. But he’d picked up some tell from her, obviously. He only asked one question. _“Is he better for you that Barton was?”_ She’d given him a single nod and he’d dropped the subject.

“So, a hotel suite it is then.” He pulled her close and pressed a soft kiss to her lips, driving bad news and uncomfortable conversations with her mentor—past and future no doubt—from her mind. “We waited too long to do this in a safe house.”

“Champagne and roses, Phil?” She laughed softly. “Getting romantic on me?”

“Maybe a little.” 

Bobbi smiled; a real smile that she couldn’t quite stop. “Okay. A little. I can handle a little.” She leaned into him, pressing her lips to his and the tension in her melted. She smiled into the kiss and sighed.

They had done it. They’d made it to that someday that neither of them had really believed was a possibility while curled together in a dark cave under too many moons. They’d made it back. They were home.


End file.
